Mindful Poetry Gathering - February 19th, 2025

For anyone who missed yesterday's Virtual Gathering, we listened and contemplated the poem "Achingly Beautiful How the Sky Blooms Umber At the End of the Day, Through the Canopy" by Gabrielle Calvocoressi. The Well's founder and executive director Stacy Sims opened our session with a short meditation and poet and friend of The Well Ellen Austin-Li facilitated our exploration of the poem.

PROMPTS:

• The speaker in Calvocoressi’s poem gives voice to some physical challenges that forced her to slow down, to notice. Can you think of a time when you slowed down enough to fix your surroundings in your mind? Describe what you witnessed using all of your senses.

• The speaker reflects on these childhood moments of solitude, which allowed them to experience a quiet epiphany (in retrospect). Write about an abiding image from your past and see where this takes you. Let your poem lead you to an opening in your own reflective writing; allow yourself to express revelation. 

• Use any word, phrase, or image in the poem to inspire your own piece.

• Follow your muse

Watch the Gathering on YouTube

Stay tuned for more Mindful Poetry updates

Connect with Stacy Sims:

Contact | Bio

Connect with Ellen Austin-Li:

website

Poems from February's Gathering:

Alone

Susan Jane Scardina

Alone in my room with friend Nancy Drew
I chose solitude over the six-pronged family chaos
downstairs with its promise of pain and humiliation.
Coddled by this chosen light bulb-lit darkness, Nancy
was easy. Her father was nice. Her mother gone.
My mother showed up only on special occasions as tines with
which to bleed me in her stiff cactus hugs at arm lengths.
She lied to friends and extended family that her children,
who all waded in the waves Dad’s bipolar violence, lived
happy lives.
She was good at charades too.
She was competitive.
She thrilled at games – ping pong, golf, darts, bridge, hearts,
Rook, fish. You name it, she beat me at it, first for match sticks,
then pennies, then quarters… When she won (all the time) she
took the spoils. Her successes towered over mine just as she
at 5’9” looked down on my five feet. It was more fun for me
to not play. To not try. To be alone in my room with friend
Nancy Drew. Alone in every room.

Indigo

Elena Estella Green

I want to escape all the time.
Dreaming about some ghost life
I would’ve had if my personal choices
Were different. So many voices seem
To say, “choose me.” like becoming
A ballerina or going to college right out of
High School. If I stayed in my rent controlled
Apartment in NYC. Yet I chose this, sometimes a
Half life where I am coasting from one day to the next.
A half life still filled with hope that the broken pieces
Don’t have to be put together like some cosmic jigsaw
I let the cracks show, with all that entails, some
With ragged edges and others smoothed over by time.
If everything has meaning then I cannot explain suffering.
Yes, sometimes a bird singing is just a bird or an amber
Sunset is just night falling and yet when a rainbow appears after a deluge of rain & mud I can’t help but feel that the lost color indigo is just for me.
There is beauty in slowing down, in smelling a flower.
It is bright yellow with no scent. It is the only childhood
photo I have, me in front of Mommy & Sister arguing.
I’m holding the flower to my nose and the left hand
Is opened and raised in a form of praise.
I was praising before I learned to pray.